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The VLC media player includes an ActiveX control that you can embed into your PowerPoint presentations. PowerPoint natively supports certain video and audio formats, but VLC can play many other formats that PowerPoint cannot, including the FLV video format. With the VLC ActiveX control, you can add more uncommon video and audio formats to your business presentations without converting them into other media formats. The video can be set to play automatically or play when you click it.

1. Install VLC on your computer. Make sure that the ActiveX Plugin check box is enabled during installation. If this option wasn’t selected when VLC was installed, the VLC ActiveX Control will not be available in PowerPoint.

2. Launch PowerPoint, click the “File” menu and select “Options” to open the Options window.

3. Click the “Customize Ribbon” category. Enable the Developer check box in the Main Tabs list if it is not already checked and click “OK.”

4. Open a presentation in PowerPoint and navigate to the slide in which you want to insert the VLC player.

5. Click the “Developer” tab on the ribbon and click the “More Controls” button at the bottom right corner of the Controls section on the ribbon.

6. Select one of the VideoLAN VLC ActiveX Plugin options in the More Controls list and click “OK.”

7. Place the VLC control onto the slide by clicking and dragging with your mouse cursor.

8. Right-click on the VLC control and select “Properties” to customize it.

9. Enter the file name of the video you want to play in the MRL field. For example, if you want to play a file named example.flv, type “example.flv” without quotes into the field. The video file and PowerPoint file must be located in the same folder.

10. Customize the control by adjusting the other options in the properties window. For example, you can set the AutoPlay option to “True” or “False” to control whether or not the video automatically starts playing during presentations.

Tip

VLC and its ActiveX control must be installed on the computer that you use to give the presentation. If you load your PowerPoint file on a computer that doesn’t have VLC installed, you won’t see the control.